Museum of Science & Industry

This building is the sole remnant of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago. Originally built as the Palace of Fine Arts and housing art treasures from around the world, it was the Fair's only fireproof structure and was thus saved from demolition after the Exposition. Following the Fair, the building housed the Field Collection of Natural History until 1920. The structure was then left empty and allowed to deteriorate until the mid-1920s, when Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, proposed the structure be used to house a museum of science and technology. He had been highly impressed with a visit to the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, the world's first scientific and technical museum. Believing his native Chicago should also house such a museum, Mr. Rosenwald donated $5 million for this cause, which was combined with public funds to open the Museum of Science and Industry in 1934. The major feature of the Deutsches Museum that so impressed Mr. Rosenwald, and that distinguished the Museum of Science and Industry at the time, was the large amount of hands-on exhibits.